Second generation (2G) and third generation (3G or 3.5G) wide area net-works are widely spread all over the world and provide varying capabilities for mobile applications in terms of bandwidth, coverage and latency. Typically these mobile networks provide data rates that are generally adequate for services employing a low to medium bandwidth applications such as voice communications, text messaging, instant messaging, e-mail with no or relatively small attachments. The data access rates tend to be marginal for services which demand or would otherwise benefit from a higher bandwidth such as multimedia streaming, rich content web browsing, or large file downloads. The greatest advantages of these networks are mobility and the wide area coverage except indoors. On the contrary wireless local area networks (WLAN) offer far better data rates and are today extensively deployed especially in metropolitan areas. The capabilities of mobile devices are growing fast and more advanced devices are consuming more bandwidth in the networks they operate. These devices, the iPhone™ as a prime example, are equipped with both wide area connectivity and local area connectivity, and applications such as web browsers and multimedia streaming applications. This requirement for bandwidth sets new challenges to wide area networks, and thus mechanisms are needed to balance the load off to local area networks having much greater bandwidth capacity. As the wide area data market has become very competitive with flat date offerings, the operators have difficulties justifying the additional investment in wide area infrastructure.
Therefore, there is a need for consumer friendly empowerment for the operator to off-load selected customers to a security enabled wireless local area network installed in an indoor environment the customers are located. The solution improves the capacity of all operator consumers affected by the congestion. The preferred embodiments of the invention realize an instance of a broker machine that reacts on information from wide area network management systems, and holistically and cost efficiently manages the congestion problem. The management happens by selecting the most suitable local area operator and initiating the formation of a NoTA virtual device concept between the selected mobile devices and a server attached with the selected local area network. The selection of the most suitable local area operator can happen based on location information, existing pricing contracts between the wide and local are operators, or in an on-line auction.